The word 'belm'

I completely agree with Jeez. Email this topic to any mental health charity and I'm sure they'd agree too. In fact anyone with the slightest bit of sense should be able to see that it's a pretty appalling word if that old school blue peter stuff is what it's about.

That said I get berated often by friends for saying things like retard, but if you've been brought up with it and it's in common parlance then often it comes out without you realising quite how bad it is. The same way that kids say gay.

I always thought belm was a scouser thing too, although all my scouser mates say chelm.

if that old school blue peter stuff is what it's about.

But it's not!! FFS!

I can't say I've given it much thought and I'm not sure I've ever used 'belm', but I think I thought it was a hybrid of 'bellend' and 'helm' (abbreviated form of helmet, i.e. the tip of a man's penis or glans).

careful glover, the acceptibility line is moving

But it's not!! FFS!

?
Was everyone winding him up by saying that?

If it's not that then soz gang

no. the issue was jeez using his interpretation of a word with questionable provenance as yet another excuse to ride his high horse of great justice. he can fuck off, forever.

fuck it, the cunts gone, good riddance. happy to let this thread foffa itself.

Jeez is an enthusiastic brown loaf swallower and rim-stench archivist.

careful glover, the acceptibility line is moving

your the acceptability line!

.

That said I get berated often by friends for saying things like retard, but if you've been brought up with it and it's in common parlance then often it comes out without you realising quite how bad it is. The same way that kids say gay.

I always thought belm was a scouser thing too, although all my scouser mates say chelm.

It's just appropriate to modify your language to your audience (Mister Coker from John Wyndham's 'Day of the Triffids' was a master of this). If I'm in the pub, watching football and drinking babycham then I could probably mutter "Bollocks Ref, that was never offside, you belm" without attracting a glance.

If my mother was to spot the fairly rare Yellowhammer bird whilst on a nature ramble with her club she would struggle to be forgiven for bellowing, "Look! A bloody Yellowhammer! That's rare as fuck!" Before scrabbling to tick it off in her spotting diary.

She denies this ever happened.

Anyway, modify your language to suit your audience, be they tedious do-gooders or drunken scaffolders.

One of my fave books.

Incidentally, the Yellowhammer is not terribly rare and does not warrant any swearyness. It's distinctive 'a little bit of bread and no cheese' call is quite sweet too.

Keep 'em peeled

yellowhammers a plenty in our ends, not so with belms

Shit fam, where you at?

I mean - Goodness, and where might I spy a cheeky yellowhammer these days?

oxon/northants borders

Belmcuntnuggetarsetwat.

Hmm, none round my parts, though I did recently see a grey wagtail, which made me fairly happy.

Huhuhuh, round your parts.

So, if I understand this right because a forum whose demographic is 16-30 White educated males with disposable income collectively don't comPlain about a derogatory term it becomes ok?

Perhaps bearing in mind that you're statistically more likely to gain an acquired brain injury we might want to consider how we'd feel being defined as a 'belm' and experience higher levels of social stigma, exclusion and crime. But hey, they're all just 'spacers'.

Velocio, I sent you an email about microcosm hosting an archive of disabled people's personal experiences since the sixties. You said you would reply?

phic is over 40 and should know the fuck better

Typing with a head wand is hard.

you wand
;)

You are still just accepting belm as a derogatory term for someone with learning disability but are probably fine bandying around idiot, cretin and imbecile. These are actual terms used in the past to describe people who are mentally disabled and are now part of common language as a mild insult. Belm is a little known word that seems to have started off as a verb meaning to force your tongue into your chin, people are only up in arms about it because it was taken out of context due to one halfwits reading of the urban dictionary and their need to argue their way into a feeling of superiority over others. Whatever it did mean it's now becoming a mild insult along the lines of idiot and moron, at least around these parts because of the fact it was highlighted and pointed out. Language and words change, sometimes over much less time than the 30 odd years that the apparent outrage is all about. In that time gay has become generally non derogatory, queer is now more of an all encompassing term for people who identify differently around sexuality and gender and there are plenty of other words that have popped into and out of usage. Getting all worked up about belm, which was used in very different way than the one jeez chose to get all righteous about is fucking daft, idiotic, cretinous and moronic, you bunch of utter belms.

So, if I understand this right because a forum whose demographic is 16-30 White educated males with disposable income collectively don't comPlain about a derogatory term it becomes ok?

Can a term be considered derogitory if it has never* been aimed at those who it is meant to...er...derog?

*I have never, ever heard the word belm being used outwith this forum. I'm sure it has but noone has mentioned any use of it towards a person with disabilities in this thread and googling it doesn't seem to throw up any examples of it being taken offence to by anyone in the group that it supposedly refers to - googling other pejorative terms does btw.